Comfortably Afraid

and other random thoughts

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Random Thoughts this week

Legacy
I sat down to write my thoughts on leaving a legacy and something unexpected happened. I have always hated the word “legacy” as it felt so egocentric and self-indulgent. What I wrote went to a dark place, not a place of positive and constructive thoughts, but a place of anger. So I shelved it for the time being. I will revisit it one of these days, but for now, I will let it simmer. I will honor the anger as it fuels change, but I also want to be able to offer a solution(s) and channel that anger for good. The biggest problem I am seeing with this “legacy” thing is that there is a huge lack of desire and compassion to leave a legacy that is focused on others, rather than oneself. How do we make a shift from “you know I won’t be around forever, (so you might want to indulge me)” to “what can I do with my time on earth to make it better for those who will live here after I am gone?” I welcome your thoughts on this and/or what you would like me to specifically address. This weighs on me heavy as I see some really sad legacies emerging that will not be changed once we are gone. How do we want to be remembered by those who love us? How do we want to change the world for the good?

Comfortably Afraid
I just finished the audiobook by Michelle Obama “The Light We Carry.” Can I just say she is one amazing human? I am still grateful that we had her and Barack in the white house for 8 years. I am not going to give a review of the book, you just have to read it. I read her first book and was impressed with her commitment to intensional living and the profound thought and heart she brings to everything she does. Michelle had a rock-solid foundation from her parents that contributed to the human she became, even through all the obstacles that she has endured being a black woman in the United States in a position of scrutiny. In the book, she talks about taking oneself out of your comfort zone all the time and becoming comfortably afraid. I loved this so much. Of course, it spoke to me considering how we have lived our life for the past 8+ years. Will and I are most comfortable out of our comfort zone so being comfortable and afraid was not a huge stretch, until the boat. UNTIL THE BOAT! The message is so important in all aspects of our life: adventure, relationships, and community and it helps us to build bridges instead of walls with others. Go read the book, it is good. 

The podcast!?!
What happened to it? It’s still coming and was supposed to launch on April 1st, but this spontaneous change of plans to sail north instead of west changed everything. We are looking at a new launch date today and will share it as soon as we have it. This is the project I am most excited about for 2023 so it will be happening. 

The crew on the boat
If you have been following us on social media you know that we have crew on Friendship currently. Samuel has been with us for over a month now and Louise-Océane just joined. We have covered a lot of miles in less than optimal weather and we could not have done it without crew considering we were working and schooling along the way. Never before have we worked and schooled on a long passage, this is a first and something we had to do because of the change of plans and approaching hurricane season. We don’t want to have to do it this way again, something in the magic of the experience is lost in this scenario. Samuel and I (and LO once she arrived) have been doing the day watches and rotating night watches with Will and Largo. All of us agree that the experience of having crew onboard has been a good one and we will do it again. In a future vlog, we will share our screening process and how we would change that going forward based on what we have learned this first time at it. So many morsels of goodness.

You decide
Let’s get your thoughts on what our newsletter should share next week.

Thank you for joining us this week. I know it is a bit lighter and a different format to our longer form, but we hope you still find the value it in. Tomorrow Largo and I officially leave Mexico for the US. Fun fact, we actually left the boat yesterday and had to get ourselves north to where our flights originate. We had planned to be as far as Puerto Vallarta in the boat, but the lack of wind had a different idea. We are working from a hostel today and tomorrow we fly. The newsletter is coming a bit early since we will have a drive day and some other work on Monday. The newsletter is my fun weekly activity so I often get overexcited to send it early. Have a fabulous weekend. If you celebrate Easter we hope your day is fabulous. I saw on the Carnegie Mellon Parents FB page that a local mom went and hid Easter eggs on campus because she missed her student (who does not even attend CMU) and thought the students would enjoy the surprise. How cute! Avalon immediately dropped what she was doing and went hunting. Have a great week!

xoxo,
Jess

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We opened more spots on our CAMINO group trip

We were down to 1 spot left and 2 if you wanted it so we checked with our accommodations and added a handful more. Yeah! If you fancy a nice, long walk with us and a group of other adventurous souls then you have found the perfect group trip! Let’s hike the last 100k of the Camino Frances into Santiago de Compostela together. All the details can be found here and if you fancy some art, food, and architecture after your hike in nature we have a trip in Barcelona immediately following the hike, well, there is a two-day break in-between to recharge. Come explore with us! To get a better idea of what type of guest joins our tours check here.

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Where are we now?

Hola Mexico!?
What was supposed to be a 16-day sail broken up over a month on weekends only ended up being over a month of sailing, mostly every day because we had no wind. It was an interesting passage on many levels and something I hope to break down a bit deeper in a future newsletter. For now, I will say that it was a bit stressful trying to fit work in here and there and at sea, but it also felt good to slow life down. On the sea, you can’t go on fast forward, especially me because I get seasick. I did spend almost a month on seasickness meds which is never great, but on most days I felt almost 100% of myself. There were long sail days to think, listen to audiobooks, brainstorm future adventures, and let the mind wander on ideas for our WorldTowning business. All that being said I am happy to be in Mexico, out of the hurricane and thunderstorm zone, and ready to sail in Mexico for the next 8-10 months before crossing to French Polynesia. There is a lot going on in our work, personal, and boat life, and deciding to slow down our sailing route for almost a year just feels right. We will address this in greater detail in a future vlog, but for now, bring on the tacos. 

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To learn more about us, our mission, and our business you can visit us at WorldTowning. To view our most recent group trip offerings head on over to WorldTowningvoyages.com. If you are interested in booking a coaching session to realize your travel dream, schedule it here. If you want to follow the travels of our WorldTowning family, you can find us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok